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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The wonderful books I've read and want to recommend to you are there, lined up and waiting patiently on my shelf.

My calendar has their recommendation dates all mapped out, for Mysterious Mondays and World Wednesdays and Fun Fridays.

And today I leave for the International Association of School Librarianship 2012 Conference in Doha, Qatar - with no new recommendations in my "buffer" to be published in the ten days ahead. Sigh...

So while I'm flying and meeting and presenting on the GiggleIT Project for student writing and flying some more, be sure to check out the BooksYALove archives using the Labels (over there --->) to find recommendations of some great YA books that you might have missed.

Rather chuffed to see that two of my recent recommendations are on the UK CILIP Carnegie Medal Longlist for 2013: Daylight Saving, by Edward Hogan, and The Apothecary, by Maile Meloy.
A great time to update your holiday wishlist, right?

And here's a double rainbow to tide y'all over till I get back.
Read on, y'all!
**kmm

Monday, November 5, 2012

Her parents torn away from her,
Easier to pretend she's always been an orphan.
Government mind drugs don't work on her.
Keeps her head down, keeps quiet.

The government-mandated brain scan shows that she has tendencies toward anti-social behavior and criminal violence, so 16-year-old Alanna Fanshawe is no more. All mention of her is erased from official records of the UNA, the chaotic nation founded by force when the food crisis hit Canada, the United States, and Mexico.The Forsaken evokes reflections of The Hunger Games, similarities with Lord of the Flies, and echoes of 1984, yet is truly its own dystopian world.

Grab this first book in the Forsaken series now at your local library or independent bookstore. Who knows how long Alanna will survive feral hoofer boars, manipulative leaders, and attacking drones on the prison island?
**kmm

My Recommendation: Banished to the Wheel?! Alanna was sure she’d pass the government
test that weeds out subversives, but she failed. Now she’ll be deported to a
remote island, into a savage world of other teen misfits where few survive.

When she was ten, her parents were dragged away by United Northern
Alliance soldiers for quietly questioning the new government’s policies. After
six years in UNA orphanage with so many others, Alanna has learned to ignore her
implanted earpiece’s constant propaganda and the prescribed thought pills, just
going along quietly, not making trouble.

But the Test brain scan shows that she has “criminal
tendencies” so she’s whisked away to Prison Island Alpha, where the life
expectancy is 18 – no overcrowding, no chance of escape, no hope of ever
finding her parents now.

Alanna and new friend David try to avoid wild animals as
they search for a rumored settlement. Suddenly they find themselves in a war
zone, since they were dumped into an area being disputed between the villagers
and the Monk’s followers. Soon this city girl must learn to fight, to track
through the tropical forest, to trust (or not trust) the village leaders.
Avoiding the drugged-up “drones” who blindly follow the masked Monk is survival
priority one.

Why is the mysterious Monk controlling his follower-drones
like throwaway toys? What secrets are the village leaders hiding? Why did the
UNA abandon so many kids who are as normal as their classmates? How long will
Alanna survive on the Wheel?

This compelling book leaves questions in the reader’s mind
about how much a government should control its citizens and how far someone
would go to defend their freedom to think, their family, their very life. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.